Stereotypes Lead Boys to Prefer Drums to Violins

April 25 -- By the time he's reached the ripe old age of 5, if you ask a boy to decide which musical instrument he would like to play, most likely he'll head straight for the drums. Ask a girl, and she's more likely to pick up a flute, or a violin.

Almost from the beginning, our sexual stereotypes have become so entrenched that they influence nearly everything we do, from the sports we play to the instruments we study to the careers we finally pick.

A recent study reaffirmed that young boys are far more likely to pick instruments generally considered "male," like drums, the trumpet or the saxophone, and girls will pick "feminine" instruments, like the violin, clarinet or flute. That's not particularly surprising, because other studies found similar results in the 1970s.

But what is a bit surprising is that despite advances in reducing sexism in society, the stereotypes we embrace as children are just about as strong today as they were decades ago.

Girl Roles Not As Rigid

"I was quite surprised to see that these stereotypes still existed," says Betty Repacholi, a research associate in the University of Washington's Center for Mind, Brain & Learning.

Repacholi and her former student, Samantha Pickering of the University of Sydney in Australia, reported their findings in the current issue of the journal Sex Roles.

The researchers, who studied more than 600 kindergarten and fourth-grade Australian children over the past couple of years, found that it's far easier for a little girl to break away from the stereotypes and pick a masculine instrument than it is for a little boy to pick up that violin.

Some boys do, of course, and many of the true masters of that instrument are men, perhaps indicating that gender is far less important as the inner muse takes over on the road to excellence. But in those early years, it can be really tough for a little guy to pick up his violin case instead of a football and head off to school. That's not what boys are supposed to do.